Help and Advice

Customer Comments

English Guitars

English guitar luthiers have been renowned the World over for as long as I can remember and have built reputations for performance, musicality, playability and a constant drive to deliver the best in our instrument.

Currently in England there are many people building guitars and amongst this number you will find names such as Aram, Barton, Dean, Gee, these Luthiers have built World wide reputations and have helped to develop the guitar as we know it.

Amongst younger makers there is a lot of good work being carried out and to represent all would be impossible therefore Stafford Guitar has selected just a few who we feel you will enjoy; Ainsworth, Christie, Hall, Williams are makers whose love for the instrument shines through their work.

The magic of the classical guitar is more than just a beautifully designed piece of artwork it is an instrument capable of communicating all the emotion and expression written into the music by the composer.

Kevin Aram

Kevin Aram grew up in the coal mining village of Clipstone in Nottingham, England. Kevin started his guitar making career repairing and restoring instruments. This gave him the opportunity to examine some of the finest instruments in the world. Aram Guitars was established in 1978 where Kevin has concentrated on making guitars in the tradition of Torres and Hauser.

Peter Barton

My work has been inspired by studying instruments I have had in for repair from some of the great makers of this century such as Hauser, Fleta, Aguado, Santos Hernandez, Simplicio, Archangel Fernandez, Ramirez, Rubio and Jose Romanillos.

Christopher Dean

In the past sixteen years, since establishing my own work shop in the Cotswold village of Kingham, I have striven to achieve perfection in my work. My aim is to produce guitars of visual beauty that are comfortable to play with a quality of sound that is well balanced and capable of great power, when called upon, without loosing sight of what attracted me, and most players, to the instrument.

Michael Gee

In 1977 after years of study Michael Gee opened his own workshop, making only classical guitars. Since those early days Michael has made over 600 guitars, gained a World wide reputation and sent his instruments to guitarists from over 20 countries.

John Ainsworth

Luthier John Ainsworth has been crafting fine classical, flamenco and baroque guitars for over 25 years, from his workshop in Lancashire. Like other respected luthiers, his initial inspiration came from A. P. Sharpe's book on Spanish guitar construction, followed by McLeod & Welford, and Sloane.

Stuart Christie

I have had an interest in classical guitar as a self taught amateur player since my teens. Early in the 1990s I came across Irving Sloane’s book on guitar making in my local library, and quickly became hooked. I started making my first guitar in 1998. I continued to make guitars since then, initially as an amateur, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I switched careers and became a luthier.

John Hall

Living in Staffordshire, I was originally apprenticed in engineering but switched to cabinet-making in the mid-1980s. Having come from a family with a strong musical background, and always having had a love of anything which made use of the skills I have in my hands, the inspiration to make my first classical guitar came from my son’s playing of the instrument.

Steve Toon

I have been making guitars for more than 25 years and am still fascinated by the process of turning beautiful wood into a living instrument of simple beauty which can produce versatile sound – extremely aggressive and strong, powerful and passionate or light and tender.
When I build a new guitar my aim is to make it respond to the player.

Roger Williams

I have worked with my hands, at various crafts, for most of my life both as a hobby and for a livelihood. An early fascination with materials, structures and aeroplanes in particular, led me take an engineering apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce eventually becoming a jet-engine designer.

Ainsworth Spruce Guitar

This is a very ‘immediate’ guitar with a voice that sings out clearly and easily from your fingertips, open and well rounded tone with a character that I think is quite vivacious, and colours at the brighter end of the spectrum – deep reds to ‘spicy’ oranges.

The clean and clear tone is key to the character, and, combined with the quick response and firm feel, she makes voicing relatively easy for her player, giving plenty of attack and intensity when asked for and reacting to fuller strokes with a lovely body and depth.

In Birds Flew Over the Spire by Gary Ryan, the balance across the strings gave me great separation within the overall campanella resonance allowing me to bring the voices in and out easily while also enjoying the warm blended background sound.

The control that the guitar gives is reassuring for the player and builds confidence as you start to realize what you can achieve.

I could hear the potential here, the developing voice as you play and push the guitar, always the most difficult thing with a new spruce top guitar. Here the evidence for me is in the open, but controlled treble strings with their glossy and polished tone, and in the firm and full bodied bass voice, as well as in the bright and lively character which will fill and develop but always retain its sparkle and life.

In the Villa Lobos Preludes (which I love again!) the definition enabled me to hear and highlight all the details and to develop the texture in the fast arpeggios while enjoyed smooth and sustained tone across the long melodic phrases. The guitar also encourages you to bring out the drama in the music, which is of course the whole point! I particularly liked the powerful chords in no.3 and the free singing treble in the falling melodies.

In Day in November by Brouwer I loved the control of tone that I could achieve with an excellent range of colour, smooth transitions and definition between melody and accompaniment.

I finished with Milonga by Cardoso, a piece that highlights the strengths of this guitar; control and definition, concentration of tone that has a great impact when bringing out the syncopated rhythms, vitality of character and a full, colourful and vibrant voice.

I really enjoyed playing this guitar and think that she is at the start of an exciting journey, one that will be fulfilling for her new owner, helping to develop their musicianship and enjoyment of the classical guitar.

Selina.

Design

2017 Fan Strut.

Table.

Alpine Spruce.

Back and Sides.

2 piece back constructed from the finest Indian rosewood beautifully bookmatched as can be seen in the photographs.

Aram Torres Guitar

This guitar is absolutely stunning in appearance with wonderful contrasts between almost black back and sides, honey coloured sycamore insert and a gorgeous spruce top, all tied together in the colours of the rosette and quality of finish that is second to none.

I was immediately captivated by the quality of her voice, a very distinctive and natural tone that has a strong traditional feel but with what I would describe as an ‘inner strength’ that gives her player something special to work with – difficult to put into words but hopefully you will see what I mean by the end of this review!

Her voice is beautifully smooth and fluid with full and silky trebles that sing true and clear, supported by an intense and focussed bass. Every note has depth and substance, a concentrated sound that is, together, firm and strong, honeyed, rounded and shapely.

Over the period of a few days I have heard her voice blossoming and opening out to the point where I have been slightly taken aback with the amount of sound and projection that I was able to push for with always a feeling of greater potential. Her voice is very even and balanced across the strings but I think the most important thing here is the pure depth of tone that gives support and great consistency across the whole range of pitch.

I really loved playing Abendlied by Mertz where I could separate and define the parts easily while still achieving lovely blending and shaping of harmony. I do enjoy the challenge of this piece, namely the sextuplet accompaniment in the middle voice of the guitar. The very quick, pure and direct response of this guitar meant that my right hand (not the quickest) could easily get the speed and articulation required to make this work and I was able to listen to and enjoy the contrast of the singing upper melody and the detailed accompaniment, highlighting the character and texture in the music.

In Standchen by Mertz she excelled with the clarity and delicacy in the piece with beautiful high melodies, blended thirds and sixths, a free sense to the rhythms of quavers against triplets and magnificent drive and sustain through the bass line both in melody and harmonic support. One more very noticeable feature, particularly in these pieces by Mertz was the ease of rolling and strumming chords. This may sound like a strange point to make but it makes the shaping of the chords, and also fitting them in to the flow of the music, so much more successful!

I realise that I need some contrast to Mertz in my reviews (!) and I really enjoyed experimenting with Lauro waltzes and bringing out a vibrancy in her treble voice that gave light and brilliance to the music while retaining body and warmth overall.

I have recently started to learn the Folias Variations by Ponce, a bit of a lifetime ambition. With this guitar I loved experimenting with the drama and colouring in the music, achieving lovely dark and rich tone colours and getting so much projection and intensity that you just want to keep playing and playing.

Finally the Tarantella (yes, back to Mertz) where clarity of articulation, substance and direction in the bass and fingertip control of tone quality and dynamics all came together to give me a fantastic rhythmic drive and compelling musical flow.

This guitar has a beautiful, pure, natural tone, in essence a ‘simple’ sound that is immediately responsive and gorgeous but can also be taken where you want to go, giving you consistently great sound and room for experimentation and exploration.

First of all I have to be a bit ‘girly’ and say how much I love the look of this guitar. She has a wonderful contrast between lovely dark rosewood, not flashy but with deep, subtle markings and a beautiful light spruce top, with the back and sides being echoed in the signature rosette where the darker wood is almost black. Very striking, which is also a good place to start with a description of the sound!

As I started to play I realised that this is a very ‘honest’ guitar with focussed, balanced and even tone across the range, clear and strong projection and a firm feel indicating great potential. This was all immediately evident in the Carcassi studies that I started with, particularly op.60, no.1 which could be described as a ‘scale’ study. There is a constant line of running quavers in scale and arpeggio form and the guitar gave me a beautifully even and seamless melody across the range of the fingerboard allowing clear shaping and phrasing.

I could actually use only one piece to sum up the guitar. When you know a piece inside out and love the music you have a very strong idea of how you want it to sound.

With Standchen by Mertz (my new absolute favourite) this guitar allowed me to shape the music freely with my thoughts easily conveyed through my fingers. Most importantly the control is wonderful, with definition bringing out every small detail and concentrated, full tone highlighting the conversations in the piece between treble and bass, the tricky nature of the treble echoing the bass, easily overcome here.

The word that keeps coming to mind is ‘calm’. This may be a reflection of how I felt in playing. She is a focussed and confident instrument, no ‘unexpected’ sounds and already very responsive with seemingly perfect clarity. I enjoyed experimenting with tone colours in this piece with lovely dolce pp contrasting with sharp and tangy brightness in the treble, and fantastic, fruity bass driving the harmony and then effortless contrast to full, mellow depth when asked for.

In contrast she gave me zest, sparkle and great rhythmical drive in Mertz’s Tarantella. Crystal clear articulation highlighted the texture created by rhythms, with fluid and projected melodies in the inner register projecting smoothly from within octaves and easy left hand action giving me uninhibited slurs, ornaments and glissandi. She is very quick to respond to the right hand, which means that the very fast tempo here does not sound hurried – just exciting!

Musical lines are so enjoyable to play on this instrument. The consistency of response and of tone quality means that you can be confident in your sound, which leads to more relaxed playing and technique as well as being able to hear more and find more in the music.

I have just started to learn Variations sur “Folia de España” et Fugue by Ponce. This is what I call a ‘huge’ piece, not only in its length and complex fingering but in its depth of harmony and expression. It particularly exploits the bass voice of the guitar and the Barton loves this with amazing ‘growl’ and sonority, deep intense and rich bass notes, always defined. She highlighted the wonderful dissonances and dramatic ‘dark’ nature of the harmony creating colours and textures that let the music come to life, as well as bringing out smooth, glowing upper melodies that seamlessly move you from dark to light and warmth.

As you can probably tell, I loved this guitar! Control and consistency of sound is at the root of it, a responsive, confident and focussed voice that encourages shaping of the music, and is already giving an expansive ‘palette’ of tone and colour.

Christie Concert Model

It is always exciting reviewing a new guitar, especially when the guitar is from a maker new to us at Stafford Guitar as there are no pre conceptions or expectations from previous instruments. In many ways this means no pressure!

With this guitar I found a bright and lively character with plenty of tonal colour and the beginning of a clear and, importantly, individual voice. By this I mean that there is very good development potential here as her sound fills in depth and resonance through playing (as with all spruce guitars). In fact as I played for this review I could feel the balance and ‘evenness’ growing and developing across the strings and range of pitch.

The treble voice is clear and easy with a fresh and gleaming character that brings excitement and zest to the upper voices with room for growth and deepening as the guitar starts to bed in.

The bass already gives a great body of sound with well-focussed and supported notes that create impact and breadth. She has a good playing action with easy tone and clarity of voicing giving the player lots of musical detail, sonority in the bass and overall colourful and vivid tone.

In Abenlied by Mertz the excitement within this guitar gave me plenty to explore in the 3 voices particularly in the main section of the piece with the sextuplet semi quaver accompaniment, plus good balance between upper melody and bass helping to drive the music.

I received a lovely full response as I went on to play Villa Lobos especially the bass melody in Prelude 4 highlighting the richness and depth in her bass voice with broad and ‘deep’ notes giving great sustain, clarity and long phrases.

In Prelude 3 I could really feel the trebles growing and developing as the music uses the complete range of the guitar. There are some particular notes that ‘stand out’ at the moment but I can already hear this changing and gaining ‘balance’.

The potential for growth and change is one of the most exciting things here, the knowledge that your playing is helping to mould and mature a voice, bringing out true potential and developing your sound at the same time.

This was especially obvious to me in Bach’s Prelude BWV999 where the constantly flowing notes and internal interweaving lines were clear and defined while all the time I could hear tangible growth in support and evenness overall.

In my opinion this guitar is a guitar with very good future prospects.

Maybe a journey into the unknown but those are the most interesting and exciting!

This is my first experience of a cedar guitar by Christopher Dean and I was immediately attracted by her big, open voice with intense and distinct individual notes supported by full bodied and rich resonance.

As a player you get a feeling of strength from this combination, a vibrant and ‘rousing’ sound palette where quality and evenness is present across the range of the fingerboard and where the surround sound gives you confidence without ever becoming too rich or swallowing notes and voices.

The ‘playing touch’/ (right hand response) is firm giving you excellent feed back and the knowledge that you can achieve great variety in colour and dynamics with plenty more to come as she plays in.

The immediate intense and colourful character of this guitar encouraged me to start my review with Eterna Saudade by Dilermando Reis, a very emotional piece full of character and requiring musical freedom. This was a good choice as it introduced me to the fantastic sonorous and fruity bass voice with a magnificent depth that supports, enhances and drives the music.

Thinking of resonance I went on to By Candlelight by Andrew York. This piece moves around a G# minor chord, which is a difficult harmony on the guitar and the overall effect on was stunning. The clear separated notes resonate and ‘clash’ together beautifully (G#, A#, B and F#) with long sustain and without cancelling each other out capturing the evocative and haunting character of the piece perfectly. The treble gives smooth and rounded notes with a warm and honeyed colouring that also has obvious substance and plenty of punch.

In Bach’s Prelude BWV999 the clear and precise nature of the treble gave the flowing arpeggios texture and colour highlighting the continuous momentum within the piece, and in Standchen by Mertz and Villa Lobos Prelude no.3 she showed a wonderful ability to ‘float’ the upper melody whether above arpeggio accompaniment or over the sublime falling melodic phrases in the second half of the Villa Lobos. This smooth and fluid quality to the sound is there for the asking, regardless of effort. However the rewards for experimenting and pushing your abilty are well worth it.

To finish I played Deux Aires Populaires Cubains by Brouwer which seemed to give a perfect summary highlighting the characterful nature of this guitar and the clarity within her resonant voice that leads to great detail and rhythm in the music.

In conclusion she has a magnificent, warm, resonant and colourful voice that also gives definition, clarity and firm attack giving her a powerful and emotional personality. Her new owner will have an exciting journey ahead!Selina.

Table

Cedar.

Rosette.

Inlay detailed with lighter coloured woods.

Back and Sides.

2 piece back constructed from the finest Indian rosewood beautifully book matched.

From the very first note this guitar has a great impact, immediately easy to play with compelling, full bodied notes and a real sense of energy and substance.

The treble has a ‘glossy’ character with colours ranging from very deep reds to zesty oranges, in other words a sound with fantastic clarity and balance for brightness and punch combined with intensity, breadth and support for warmth and a more velvet sound.

The bass is simply everything that you would wish for, with wonderful depth and drive produced by direct and focused tone – overall both engaging and exhilarating!

When playing Milonga I loved the clarity and detail within the arpeggios that helped to highlight the clashing harmonies, syncopation and musical expression. The full and rounded brilliance of the treble was much in evidence and choosing lines and individual notes to bring forward seemed effortless.

She really has masses of sound to project, put your foot on the pedal and she keeps giving, even at this early stage.

In Bach’s Cello Suite no.1 I had all the control necessary for the detail and delicacy that I require and so achieved a lovely light and flowing tone, balanced and even notes across the strings and easy shaping of the long phrases and multiple lines. I could hear the treble voice ‘filling’ as I played, building resonance, sustain and support and clearly demonstrating it’s huge potential.

Lough Caragh by Gary Ryan is a beautiful and atmospheric piece of music and so an excellent test for a guitar! This guitar rose to the challenge giving me rich, smooth and velvet bass notes, a voice for the listener to get lost in, and a graceful and engaging treble sound that easily maintained quality and emotional response as the music moved around the fingerboard.

It was easy to clearly project the voices through the ‘campanella’ resonance showing me that the sound has a true essence and the lovely combination of focused sound and a warm, rich overall voice.

The first word that I used in the description of this guitar was impact. By this I meant the presence and impression of her sound being unavoidable. She is an emotional and musical guitar and so far I have used that sort of music to review the sound so I wanted to finish with the outgoing side to her character.

Fantasie on Themes from La Traviata by Tarrega is a fantastic piece that leaps from one emotion to the next, rich to sparkling, charming to thrilling, vivid and ‘showy’ to wistful and reflective. Through this guitar I managed all of this with ease. The trebles can be vivid and brilliant with plenty of attack with one stroke and then immediate soft and gentle with a creamy full voice. The bass is wonderful especially with the D tuning and gave me drive and punch one minute and body and sonority the next. Great fun!

In reading this review back I have realized that I could sum things up pretty quickly.

She has a big and beautiful voice that is emotional and overall colourful, giving you the chance to express all of your musical emotions with all the control and support that you need.

Selina.

Table

Spruce.

Rosette.

Inlay detailed and beautifully crafted in darker coloured woods.

Back and Sides.

2 piece back constructed from the finest Indian rosewood beautifully bookmatched as can be seen in the photographs.

After playing this guitar over a few days I will summarize thus – simply put, she has a gorgeous voice!

However for the purpose of the review I will go into more detail!

I found her a joy to play from the first touch, with so much immediate depth and colour and an open and true tone. The breadth of the sound is amazing for a brand new spruce guitar and although she will probably tighten up in the natural course of development, this does speak of wonderful things to come.

The treble is smooth, round and clear, with a truly ‘singing’ voice, a tone that I describe as ‘golden’. This results in great sustain and legato melodies supporting overall phrasing and musical shape. This beautiful tone is also maintained over the range of the fingerboard as I discovered playing the first movement of La Cathedral by Barrios, giving me pure, fluid and crystal clear sound across the treble strings around the 12th fret and creating a magical atmosphere, even at this early stage.

Her bass voice really does have the wow factor combining depth and body of sound with focus and strength, intense and substantial sound supporting the whole voice and creating an impact that demands attention from both player and listener. In fact my best descriptive word for this is ‘passionate’, discovered when playing Villa Lobos preludes numbers 1 and 4 and Standchen by Mertz, achieving in all cases compelling drive, shape and momentum.

The intensity and shape of the individual notes is probably the most striking thing about this guitar. Her voice is so well supported giving flowing continuity to your music and in turn supporting her player, allowing technical and expressive freedom.

In the Sonata by Mateo Albeniz I loved the precise clarity of the sound always maintaining overall radiance with loads of volume and vitality. The consistency of treble tone across a wide range of pitch is very important in this piece and this guitar delivered with ease and vigour!

Returning to Villa Lobos I particularly enjoyed playing Prelude no.3 (quickly becoming one of my favourite pieces by the way) for the expansive, free and open sound and wide range of timbre that I could produce.

Control on this guitar is excellent and she responds to tiny adjustments in technique giving me my voice through my fingers. Highlights include magnificent sonority in the chords in the middle section and beautiful, fluid falling phrases towards the end with plenty of drama and emotion along the way.

In the Ciacona by Weiss the direct intensity of her tone came to the fore with a lovely sense of balance and control over the voicing, really bringing out the beauty of bigger intervals in the melodic line as well as the stability and compelling movement of the repeating base line.

Majesty, power and wonderful dissonance were in abundance in the Ponce Folias variations. This piece really demonstrated the range of this guitar. From big arresting harmonies to delicate weaving lines, exhilarating fast repeated chords to long, slow controlled phrases and delicate harmonics, she has the ability to fully portray and communicate the music.

The Fugue at the end is an immense piece of music, for me taking a guitarist beyond what they normally have to interpret and this guitar handled it beautifully, in particular the last section where two voices rise and rise in counterpoint to well above fret 12 accompanied by an insistent bass pedal creating screaming tension and a massive crescendo. I so much enjoyed playing this, especially the seemingly never ending build up that she gave me and the subsequent contrast to so soft and emotional.

This guitar has it all really – playability, beautifully smooth treble, magnificent full bodied basses and an overall warmth combined with balance and clarity that are so exciting and intriguing for the future - Great fun.

This is a wonderful little guitar; little that is in physical size but with a striking presence and a distinctive and musical personality. Her tone is sweet and pure, a warm character with intense, engaging trebles and a gorgeous bass voice that is full bodied and radiant giving fantastic support and depth to the overall voice.

As I played I discovered that she is not a guitar to be pushed and played ‘hard’, but rather, enjoys encouragement and coaxing.

This review in fact was a good reminder for me that we need to learn ‘how’ to play a new guitar to get the best response and sound, and every guitar is different. With encouragement her voice grew in depth and focus as I played and with each piece I discovered new details of colour and tone that got me quite excited!

As a maple Torres instrument she has a special and unique voice designed for purity of tone, direct projection and balanced, ‘true’ singing notes. For the review I played mostly Baroque, Classical and Romantic repertoire and really enjoyed great variety of tone perfect for bringing out the drama and emotion of the repertoire. For those of you who are familiar with my reviews (and so my likes) you will not be surprised to hear that I played a lot of Mertz!

In Abendlied the voicing was gorgeous with texture and definition in the accompaniment and lovely clarity and sustain in the upper melody, all supported wonderfully by strength and substance in the bass. Standchen, my absolute favourite at the moment, really had the wow factor. In some ways the sound is difficult to describe. Earlier I said ‘sweet’ though this does not mean that it lacks impact. Far from it. The notes are intense, a pure and concentrated sound that brings out the details, definition and texture in the music.

Her bass voice delivered deep, full bodied harmony and sustain allowing me to highlight the triplets of the melody moving against the steady quavers of the middle voice giving a great feeling of freedom in the counterpoint and also freedom of expression.

In contrast to Mertz, in Prelude BWV999 by Bach with its constantly moving semiquavers the clarity across the arpeggios was great, very easily to highlight the bass ‘melody’, and fantastic blending of sound that resulted in driving harmonic tension and movement throughout the piece.

Back to Mertz the Tarantella gave me a chance to try out speed and excitement and I was delighted with the precise articulation and response, clear and precise notes that build texture and rhythm as the music builds with lovely sparkle in the treble to exploit and it all becomes very exciting!

Finally to Tarrega - wonderful repertoire for this instrument. Rosita and Capricho Arabe highlighted all of her best features; natural and strong romantic character; a beautiful, ‘traditional’ singing voice, and warmth and richness of tone contained within pure and direct notes - all of which gives texture, drama and emotion.

Hall Spruce Guitar

The finish on this guitar is beautiful, notably a silky smooth neck perfect for thumb movement and relaxation.

I noted straight away the openness of the sound allowing easy projection and volume, a step up from John’s previous guitars. The trebles have a lovely clarity of tone and are very responsive, strong and warm in character with an underlying sweetness for your softer musical side!

The strings do have quite a tight feeling under the right hand fingers at the moment, indicating that she can be played strongly and that there is good potential for much development in her voice.

She does of course need playing in, and as I played I could feel and hear her voice growing in depth and breadth (a real highlight of my job!).

In 'Reflections' and 'By Candlelight' by Andrew York I found a glowing resonance with good dynamic control combined with inner detail and an overall smooth tone.

The treble E is developing a singing and polished tone bringing excellent preciseness to the articulation and rhythmic drive in Canarios by Sanz.

In the gorgeous El Noi de la Mare I could really sink into the bass voice, very strong in support of the soaring melody and growing in sonority as the guitar is put to work. After hearing this I went on to play Prelude no.1 by Villa Lobos and found a firm and lively bass voice, one that could shape this great bass melody and help to give it character.

In Rosita by Tarrega the separation of the voices was evident with the lively and radiant treble lines being supported and enhanced by full bodied harmony and depth in the bass, clarity and balance across the whole and plenty of detail.

This guitar has a journey ahead that is unknown but full of potential for a player who wants more detail, clarity and strength but has not got a lot of money to spend. She is certainly excellent value and in my opinion plays above her price tag.

Selina.

Table.

Alpine Spruce

Rosette.

Leaf design with contrasting purfling surrounding the soundboard.

Back & Sides.

Selected Indian rosewood skillfully crafted into a two piece back with a beautifly centre piece of maple.

Toon Concert Model

It is always exciting when I get to play a guitar that is completely new to me as there are no pre conceptions or expectations, in other words a completely blank page! This guitar ‘spoke’ to me immediately with a beautiful clear tone, well rounded and balanced trebles, strong focussed bass notes and excellent clarity and sustain across the strings and fingerboard.

She also has a great ‘lift’ to her voice and excellent control, which gave me loads of detail, fluidity and musical direction in Prelude BWV 999 by Bach, so important in this style of music.

The control of sound is a key feature with this guitar. I found that I was able to achieve the detail that I wanted, for example small changes in tone and colour to help to shape and develop the music.

She is a very responsive guitar and already has an open voice with a wide range of colour and dynamic.

The great thing is that she does not lose definition or clarity – it is always there in support of the player leading to clear, quick (off the string) and easy articulation and as a result speed, slurs and ornaments with little effort required.

This was all very apparent as I played Sonata by Albeniz (the Baroque one) highlighting the lift that I mentioned earlier and the vitality in her character. In Ciacona by Weiss I loved the clarity and warmth within the chords that she gave me, with long phrases and singing lines ‘talking’ together, especially the repeating bass feature which controlled and shaped the piece with ease.

I have just noticed that easy seems to be quite a key word for this review. I really got the feeling that anything was possible, that I could happily enjoy the sound as it is now but also could keep exploring and find so much more.

My clear highlight of the review was By Candlelight by Andrew York. This is a very haunting piece in a tricky tonality for the guitar – G# - and the result here was simply beautiful. Delicate and seamless sound, smooth tone and control in the separation of the melody and accompaniment which move very close together, and an emotional and evocative response. The notes are distinct and yet shapely giving a great concentration of sound and clarity with depth that gives support, understated projection and ‘presence’. The constant ebb and flow within this piece felt easy to achieve pulling me into the music and encouraging musicianship.

Yes, a quality guitar really does push you to greater heights and facilitate progress on musical and technical levels. I also loved the way that I could move between different sounds, dolce tone to forceful tone, soft and gentle to full bodied and vivid.

Other pieces played included Tarrega Preludes where the guitar thrived in the fantastic musicality and emotion of these miniature pieces and my Coste study of the moment where I had great fun with stopping the bass notes – intense and sonorous, controlled sound. I felt that I had to close with Lough Caragh by Gary Ryan. The sound was truly beautiful, the only way to describe it really, with crystal clear singing lines in the upper register, depth and body to every note whatever the volume and overall substance.

This is a lovely instrument and maybe the best thing about her is the price!

She really does punch above her weight and offers a wonderful opportunity to a player/ student/ enthusiast on a budget.

This guitar has an immediate, clean and clear response while maintaining a warm and full resonance that helps to give excellent body to the sound overall.

Her character is full of life with an easy tone and great evenness across the range of the strings and fingerboard. This was particularly evident as I played the E major Prelude by Bach where all the detail and texture was clear giving the music real energy and movement. The clear and fluid treble voice is supported by a firm, rich and vibrant bass with very good definition and depth.

In Rosita by Tarrega this highlighted the rhythmic drive and fun in the music beautifully, with the guitar already displaying a wide range of colour and dynamic and clearly opening out as I experimented with my musical ideas.

I particularly enjoyed playing the Lauro waltzes finding it easy to get the smooth fluid lines punctuated by shifting and syncopated rhythms. In this music the guitar showed her confidence, allowing the player to move around the fingerboard without worry, as the tone is secure, fluid and even, with excellent quality especially noticeable in the melodies above the 12th fret.

This guitar has a clear and distinctive voice, an overall firm and full sound that highlights detail and really brings out the vitality in the music, great evenness with a honeyed resonance in support enabling smooth and fluid lines and lovely detail in the harmonies and arpeggios.

In short great potential for a player wanting to make her sound their own.

Selina.

Table.

Western Red Cedar.

Rosette.

Hand inlaid "Bard of Gold".

Back & Sides.

East Indian Rosewood with centre insert of Quarter Sawn English Lacewood.